"As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God." Psalm 42:1

Sheila Walsh shared the story of when she was preparing to take the platform to speak at one of the "Women of Faith" conferences, a time where she was in a good place in life, when all seemed right, but that there was within her, an ache. A longing. She whispered a prayer to Him as to what it might mean, why it was there? She said she heard the Father whisper back that it was His desire that she should never lose that "sacred ache." It was, and is, a longing for more of Him. It was also His reminder to her that she was not home yet. There remained still more of Him to know and experience. More. Much more.

Do we share such a longing for Him? Is there within us a sacred ache? There can be no doubt that there is. It is in each of us, placed there by Him. He is always calling us home. Home to His heart, His life, His fullness. The great tragedy is that we have become experts at masking that longing with the junk food and soda pop of this world. Walsh says that our hearts will be "radicalized" either by a longing for Him, or for something else. What has radicalized our hearts? What do we chase after? Things, position, recognition, applause? We all ache for something? What is our real "sacred ache?" The answer is not found in the words from our lips, but from the attitudes and actions of our hearts.

I saw a beautiful video on Facebook the other day. An elderly father finds he will be spending Christmas alone. All of his children, busy, successful, distracted, will be unable to come home. The scene is one of him sitting alone at his table, a Christmas tree in the background. The scene then shifts to his children, all invested in their own lives, who suddenly receive notice that he has died. Regret, grief, mourning takes hold of each of them. They all gather at his home, preparing to go in and sort out his belongings. When they enter, they find a table set for all of them, and then their elderly father comes in from the other room. He told them that he felt that their believing him gone was the only means of bringing them home. They all embraced and then joined in a celebratory dinner of life....I saw it in this way. As the elderly father longed for his children, an ache in his heart, so does the heavenly Father long for us. His children, distracted by their lives, were finally awakened to their longing for him. So too must we be. Have we been? Or, will we go on longing with all our hearts for the things of this world, thinking it our home, while missing the joy and wonder of His home...the home we have been created for?

There is that Sacred Ache in all of us, but are we following it to Him, or has it been counterfeited by this world? Does our ache go towards having the fullness of His heart and will in our lives, or for merely having all things work out in the way that we want...and always to our benefit? The Sacred Ache will call each of us home. Our true home...where the Father aches for us. Will we come? Are we moving there now?